Voyage-2 Prep — Overview of what you need to know – Chingu – Medium

Review our standards and practices so that you can be familiar with important topics like milestones, the Elon-Musk-bot, communication guidelines and how NOT to make your team-mates angry.Table of ContentsWhy the Chingu Voyage cohort exists [1 min]Schedule [1 min]Standards + The Builder’s Pledge [3 min]Essential skills to learn before you start [10–200 min]The Build-2-Learn Project Roadmap (Acts+Milestones) [1 min]Why the Chingu-Voyage cohort existsThe Chingu-Voyage cohort exists to give motivated learners a community, environment and challenge to accelerate their skills, be accountable, as well as an opportunity to gain experience in a remote dev team.Why is this important?There are more people learning to code (and competing for jobs) than ever before.

Those practices (seen below) are now our standards.All members are expected to do a check-in twice a week (NEW TO VOYAGE-2)The check-in style we encourage is:What I did in the last few days?What I’m working on in the next few days?Is there anything blocking my path?I can’t stress enough how important consistent communication is for remote dev projects.

For anyone new to a Chingu B2L project, this will probably be the biggest skill you learn (regardless of what your team builds).

The Build-2-Learn Project Roadmap (Acts+Milestones)In Voyage-2, each Build-to-Learn project will have 3 Acts and each act with have 5–10 milestones for the team to complete before they can get to the next act.Act 1 — Project SetupAct 2 — Code sprints (repeat until MVP)Act 3 — Closure+ShowcaseACT 1 = Start button, ACT 2 = the circle, ACT 3 = the mountain-topNote: when the cohort launches you’ll get a document that shows in detail what each milestone is, including any resources we have for that milestone, any examples of the milestone from former teams and due dates for each Act.That’s it, you’re all set!Have fun preparing for the Voyage-2 cohort!

Review our standards and practices so that you can be familiar with important topics like milestones, the Elon-Musk-bot, communication guidelines and how NOT to make your team-mates angry. The Chingu… @ReactDOM: Voyage-2 Prep — Overview of what you need to know #react #chingu #git #javascript #reactjs

Review our standards and practices so that you can be familiar with important topics like milestones, the Elon-Musk-bot, communication guidelines and how NOT to make your team-mates angry.

The Chingu-Voyage cohort exists to give motivated learners a community, environment and challenge to accelerate their skills, be accountable, as well as an opportunity to gain experience in a remote dev team.

Why is this important?

There are more people learning to code (and competing for jobs) than ever before. On top of that, how many times have we all entry level jobs that require previous developer experience?

The Voyage cohort is a way to gain that experience while also leveling-up your skills (both technical and soft).

Put simply: the Voyage cohort is where people build projects.

Voyage-2’s Schedule

September 15 — Prep Packet goes out

September 21 — Voyage-2 Starts

September 24 — Teams launch

October 3 — Act 1 finished due-date

October 10–15 — Sprint 1 due-date

Sprints will continue until the project is finished.

November 10 — Showcase for finished MVPs

Some projects may take more time to complete. That is okay.

We’ve launched hundreds of remote team projects and there is a formula for successful teams. Every successful team has a commitment to finishing, an openness to learn, and consistent communication.

We’ve launched hundreds of team-projects and looked at what practices the successful teams did. Those practices (seen below) are now our standards.

All members are expected to do a check-in twice a week (NEW TO VOYAGE-2)

The check-in style we encourage is:

What I did in the last few days?

What I’m working on in the next few days?

Is there anything blocking my path?

I can’t stress enough how important consistent communication is for remote dev projects. The above check-in style takes 3 minutes and gives all the information the team needs to know.

Don’t be evil (thanks Google).

Don’t think I need to explain this. We’ve had people from 115 different countries from all kinds of backgrounds you can imagine. Everyone shares the same goals and is here to improve their lives through coding. 🙂

Sign the Builder’s Pledge

Before starting, you’ll have to sign the Builder’s Pledge, which is basically an Accountability Pledge. This cohort can be a jetpack for your learning and career, but you need to be accountable and be able to count on your team for it to go smoothly.

The Builder’s Pledge should be sent in your Prep-Packet email. Be sure to sign it before the cohort begins.

Yes, we have a bot named Elon-Musk. He helps keep people focused, encourages the most consistent members and will probably send you pictures of himself. ;p

Learn these before you start

There are some skills that are like magic keys that’ll allow you to get the most out of your Voyage-2 experience.

1. Learn the basics of how to code collaboratively.

Using Git/github effectively is an essential skill for any developer now. For anyone new to a Chingu B2L project, this will probably be the biggest skill you learn (regardless of what your team builds). It’s that important.

Learn the foundations of Git/Github on DevGaido.

Note: you don’t have to have 10000 hours in using github, but knowing the basics is a must. You and your team will work together to figure out the details when you start.

2. The Power of Soft-Skills

Learning soft-skills is like picking up a super-power. Your whole life changes when you earn them.

Here’s a list of some essential Soft-skill principles.

(Quick note: Warren Buffet once did a course centred around the principles in that link. The certificate he got from that little course is the only one he has hanging in his office — not his university degrees. He credits learning soft-skills with changing his life early in his career.)

In Voyage-2, each Build-to-Learn project will have 3 Acts and each act with have 5–10 milestones for the team to complete before they can get to the next act.

Note: when the cohort launches you’ll get a document that shows in detail what each milestone is, including any resources we have for that milestone, any examples of the milestone from former teams and due dates for each Act.

That’s it, you’re all set!

Have fun preparing for the Voyage-2 cohort! We’ve got some big improvements we’re excited to try out and optimize so that we can continue to give people better opportunities to level-up!